[Greg Reid]

I thought that '68 was the only year for the VW auto-stick.

[b-man]

Originally Posted by Greg Reid

I thought that '68 was the only year for the VW auto-stick.

1968 through 1976 for the auto stick beetle. They’re sought after by folks who can’t drive a stick but want an air-cooled VW.

Never were any 3-speed manual trans cars, all were 4-speed with 4th being an overdrive. The overdrive ratio for most of the ‘60s and ‘70s was .89 (coupled with 4.375 ring and pinion for 1200/1300 and 4.125 for 1500/1600) with the later ‘70s 1600 using the .93 4th and 3.875 ring and pinion.

[242177P]

Originally Posted by Singleton

I managed to suppress laughing, and showed her where the air pump station was located and how to use it

Noticed my car was pulling ever so slightly to one side. Yep, low 20s. Looks like it's just a slow leak, no big deal. There's a gas station ahead, it has an inflator around the side. Some kid is messing with his bike. Whatever, it is a gorgeous afternoon, there's a light breeze, I'm in no hurry.

A song on the radio later, he's still messing with that tire. I should see if the kid needs a hand. Yikes, he is angry. Literally tells me that he is not stupid, better leave this one alone. Two minutes later, that tire let go. The blast was loud enough to get the mechanics to run over. Visibly shaken, but unharmed.

[sdbob]

When I was a young kid we use to play around at the Rolling Rock Brewery. They had a good size truck garage. One day I needed air in my bike tire. So I helped my self using one of those old type inflators with a crank and set the air inflation you want. So I set it, blew the tire up , bang! The inflator was set 'double' what gauge said for the big truck tires. Mechanic told me afterward. Live and learn.

[OG68]

IIRC the Auto-Stick was developed in the 50s for disabled German war veterans

[Sirrotica]

When I had my service station, we had a public air line as a courtesy, during the summer hardly a day went by that a kid blew up his bike tire. Yeah they make quit a loud bang when they blow up.

One time I had a parent come down, and bitch that his kid blew up his tire with my courtesy air line, and wanted me to pay for fixing his bike tire........

The next day the courtesy air line was gone, never to return. This was in the late 70s, early 80s, when everyone had free air lines out for the public, I wasn't very popular when I discontinued that free service. By having free air access people tend to keep refilling the tires that leak on their cars, rather than getting them fixed, so I was discouraging people from having me fix their tires, and costing me money to keep running the compressor, and replacing the stolen air lines that also cost me money.

[SRR]

Here in Kalifornia the air is "Free" but always out of service.

[Greg Reid]

I can still remember the first time I pulled my bike up to the neighborhood air hose at the Gulf station where I was suddenly greeted by the sight of a coin slot. I couldn't believe it! How can you charge for air? Air is free!

[grandam1979]

I like the old dial your psi stands as the air went in it went click click click and would stop when it got to the set psi.

[MUSLCAH]

Customer calls me....said the paint is coming off the door I painted for her last month.

I said ,bring it by the shop ,and I’ll look at it.

So..she comes by ...we both walk out to the car...then we walk around to the passenger side ( the door I painted )....and I say to myself...we got a live one here.

I said ...Ma’am....someone hit your door ...and put a big dent in it ,,,,and scraped the paint off.

That right there is not my fault ..or product failure.

She said....ohhhhhh

You can’t fix stupid

[mzbk2l]

Originally Posted by Vid

This is hysterical and reminds me of an experience I had about 8 years ago with the one time I bought a house to flip it. Bought the house from an acquaintance without an inspection. I was in the process of getting it ready for the market and noticed the dishwasher wasn’t operating correctly, the bottom was filling up with water instead of draining. The pump sounded like it was trying to work so must be a clog somewhere, right? Check the drain hose and it looks like new inside. Pressurized air produced bubbling in the puddle in the bottom of the dishwasher so I knew that path was clear. Hmmm. Look at the spot on the garbage disposal where the hose connects and whoever installed the dishwasher never punched out the little round tab that lets the water pass through into the disposal basket. Who knows how many years they couldn’t use the dishwasher because of that?!

That one hurts. I installed numerous garbage disposals back in the day when they had a female cap over the male nipple for the dishwasher drain tube. The first time I installed a disposal that had the punchout instead of the rubber cap I forgot about it, too! Had the exact same issues.

[Tarl]

I swapped out the forks on my 1980 honda CX500 with some CBR1000 USD forks, which entailed using the CBR brakes and master cylinder.

Wasn't used to to this type of Master Cylinder and thought it had a liner for the reservoir and tried to get that sucker bleed and it just wouldn't. Turned out the liner was the cap seal that extends to take up space when the fluid level drops, so the fluid was never getting into the reservoir DOH.

Then first time driving it the front brakes would gradually lock up SOLID, very dangerous took a small tumble, front wheel won't turn. Luckily I was close to a home depot and bought an adjustable wrench and released the pressure. Thought I overfilled it and drained and bleed again and it happened again on my way to get it inspected. Turns out there is a tiny indent in the clutch lever that the MC piston goes into which I didn't do so the MC was never able to release pressure, so yep, I am STOOPID as well.

[Greg Reid]

An entire new thread could be started on stupid thing WE have done I guess.

[sdbob]

Sold 350 Pontiac engine to a neighbor for a 71 Ventura. I installed it. Wouldn't start,hmm it took 2 nights, timing off the exhaust.

[JSchmitz]

We all get frustrated by stupid and lazy people. They are actually a blessing! Imagine a world filled with energetic geniuses. You'd have to bust your a$$ every day just to be average!!!

[unruhjonny]

/\/\ bah-ha-ha!

[SRR]

I did an AC compressor/condenser/vacuum on a Honda CRV. I couldn't get it to work and wondered what the heck I did wrong. THEN I remembered I had pulled the fuse because the old compressor would stall the engine when the owner would turn it on.
A friend of mine who speaks three languages and is very intelligent calls me and says my brake lights aren't working, ok, sounds like the brake light switch...calls me again and says they are still not working hmmm...did you check the bulbs? "No" Both were burnt out. lol

[RocktimusPryme]

I used to work as a subject matter expert in the field on military aircraft. UAVs in particular. I would constantly have to butt heads with the Green Suiter Captains. Not exactly stupid in this case. Just that they would make blatantly self-serving decisions.

At that time, the conflict in Afghanistan was mostly one of occupancy. So we didnt have much for real missions. Mostly you just fly around and look at stuff. (When I was in Iraq with JSOC, completely different story). But those Captains of the UAV units, the biggest card they can play when it comes to promotion board time, is that they flew more hours than the captain of the unit they replaced.

Now these UAVs are exactly C17s, so they are pretty finicky about wind, crosswinds in particular. They will take off just fine, but they cant land in a 25+ knot crosswind to save their lives. Afghanistan has a phenomenon in the summer commonly called the "100 Days of Wind" Doesnt take a lot of imagination to see what gives it that name. Its essentially just a wind season. So you will have days or weeks where we dont really have flight weather.

But Ol' Cap when he only has 5 hours of flight hours logged for the last he (or she) starts to get really antsy. Starts to make some bad decisions about how safely that bird can go up. Obviously I dont tell anybody what to do, not my role there. But I would always make it a point to say something like, "Look, I dont get paid any more or any less if that plane goes back home, or lawn darts in the desert. So if you want to fly, we fly. I just want to make sure that you understand that the SME is saying to the whole flight brief, that based on what the weather guy is saying, this is a bad idea "

More often than not, when you frame it as, everyone knows this is only so you can write down some spreadsheet numbers, and its all the way on you if something bad happens. They would quietly change their mind.

They used to just put birds up in bad weather and "Fly around the flag pole" No mission, just flying around the base. Which is worse than the normal fly around and look at stuff, because at least that is technically a mission. This is just doing a circle over the base. Even worse, they would take off with a full fuel load. But you cant land heavy like that, so you have to dump fuel to safely land. Its crazy how much JP8 gets just dumped on the ground over there. Stuff that would never fly, in anything resembling civilization. Im not exactly a tree hugger, but I dont see how anyone was ever okay with that. As a tax payer, it all used to drive me nuts.


On the flip side when we were supporting the ground forces in Syria pushing out ISIS, it was much easier to hold you head high. When a bird went up you knew it was for a reason. The units were better trained, less nonsense. Everyone had a job to do, and it got done.

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by Greg Reid

An entire new thread could be started on stupid thing WE have done I guess.

Agree. I read through the whole thread mostly to make sure I wasn't in here somewhere.

K

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by SRR

Try working a parts counter if you really want to deal with stooopid. It boggles my mind when I see a guy asking the 19 year old minimum wage girl behind the counter what could be his problem with his car.

You've reminded me of one from last week.

I ran into the TSC store to buy chicken feed. I chose the shortest line, which (as is my custom) ended up being my first mistake.

I got in line behind a guy and his wife, and two small children, apparently who are named "Cain" and "Abel" (Abel is a girl). She starts having a temper tantrum and runs off so the mom goes off to fetch her.

Meanwhile the dad places his one or two items on the counter but unbeknownst to me is buying a bunch of stuff from the back yard: fencing, and gates, and bags of lime, etc. This requires the cashier to leave his post to go ask how much some of this costs, return to ring it up, repeat. Call for assistance; have that guy depart and report back, etc.

Keep in mind I'm standing there, holding my ONE item which happens to weigh 50 lbs, watching the folks in the other line burn through their purchases ("ok - there's the lady that was in front of me. Ok - that would have been me. Ok - that's the guy that got in line after me and moved over there").

Here's the kicker, though, and why I came to post. The cashier asks the guy "how many bags of lime do you need?".

The guy says "I dunno. Five? Six? Whatever."

I'm like "DUDE - YOU HAVE TO TELL HIM HOW MANY! There's no way the CASHIER is going to know how many bags YOU need!"

Geez.

K